


In their little wooden beds

by Sol_Invictus



Series: Blessed in motherly ways [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Happy AU, Jopson and Little living the life they deserve and adopting kids, M/M, Thomas mother hen Jopson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sol_Invictus/pseuds/Sol_Invictus
Summary: Edward finds his Tom watching over their sleeping children.(Or: Jopson and Little adopt three kids and live in a small charming cottage in South England after the Franklin expedition.)





	In their little wooden beds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onstraysod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/gifts), [whalersandsailors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/gifts).



> It is set seven months after Jopson and Little adopt the kids. Mary is 5, Willy 4 and Kitty 2. They are siblings.

When Edward came back from his usual evening horse riding and found no trace of Thomas on the first floor, he immediately climbed upstairs. The house had taken on a warm shade of yellow in the sunset, balmy with the smell of the summer flowers growing in the garden. He went to the nursery, opening carefully the door (its creaks could wake the dead, but this was an old house; it creaked everywhere). Indeed his Tom was here, sitting on the edge of one of the beds, the book still open in his laps. It made Edward smile fondly. Thomas smiled back, happiness dripping from every pore of his skin, and reached for his hand to kiss.

It had been love at first sight between Tom and the little ones. The second his eyes had fell upon these three little ragged youngsters, Thomas had not glanced at any other child in the orphanage. Mary had ran to him as if she had recognized her very own father. Even Kitty, barely a babe of two, had laughed happily in Thomas’ arms. Edward and he had brought them home that very day despite the fact nothing had been ready yet to accommodate a child, much less three. They had watched Mary, Willy and Kitty sleep, huddled together on the couch, wrapped in blankets, for most of the night.

“Cinderella again?” whispered Edward as he reached for the book.

“Willy’s favorite.”

“I still hold that a four-year-old boy should not love princess stories so much.”

“Don’t be such an old killjoy, Ned. You’ll become his hero soon enough, and then all you’ll hear about will be pirate stories.”

Edward felt unexpectedly emotional at the idea the boy could look up to him. It had been more difficult for him to love these children, to accept them so readily into his life. He didn’t know how to be a father. It was so natural for Tom, so instinctive, that Edward sometimes couldn’t help thinking these orphans would never see him as anything else than their ward.

“I think _you_ will be his hero,” he whispered, throat tight.

Thomas’ smile softened and he squeezed his hand. He pulled Edward down into a kiss, stroke his cheek with a reassuring hand (for his Tom could read him perfectly like an open book, could always guess his thoughts as if he was in Edward’s head).

“I am blessed to be loved by a man like you, Edward. I am blessed to have you as the father of my children. Of _our_ children.”

Edward felt blinded by the love he had for Thomas, for this gentle and good man who had saved the life of hundreds of men lost and desperate in the arctic wasteland. _He_ was the one blessed here. He knew he was not even worthy of lacing Thomas’ shoes, and yet the ex-steward had chosen _him_ to bestow his love upon. By their side, Mary stirred.

“Let’s go back downstairs before we wake them up,” he whispered softly as he kissed Thomas’ temple.

They made their way silently to the door. Thomas put back the book in its place, next to Crozier’s memoirs of the Parry expedition. Edward cast one last glance to his little ones, soundly asleep in their beds. He suddenly thought he could get used to it, to seeing them asleep in their beds every night, his Tom watching over them, kissing their little heads.

Yes, he thought to himself warmly, he could definitively get used to it.


End file.
